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Forgotten World - The Stone-Walled Settlements of the Mpumalanga Escarpment (Paperback)
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Forgotten World - The Stone-Walled Settlements of the Mpumalanga Escarpment (Paperback)
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If you drive through Mpumalanga with an eye on the landscape
flashing by, you may see, near the sides of the road and further
away on the hills above and in the valleys below, fragments of
building in stone as well as sections of stone-walling breaking the
grass cover. Endless stone circles, set in bewildering mazes and
linked by long stone passages, cover the landscape stretching from
Ohrigstad to Carolina, connecting over 10 000 square kilometres of
the escarpment into a complex web of stone-walled homesteads,
terraced fields and linking roads. Oral traditions recorded in the
early twentieth century named the area Bokoni - the country of the
Koni people. Few South Africans or visitors to the country know
much about these settlements, and why today they are deserted and
largely ignored. A long tradition of archaeological work which
might provide some of the answers remains cloistered in
universities and the knowledge vacuum has been filled by a variety
of exotic explanations - invoking ancient settlers from India or
even visitors from outer space - that share a common assumption
that Africans were too primitive to have created such elaborate
stone structures. Forgotten World defies the usual stereotypes
about backward African farming methods and shows that these
settlements were at their peak between 1500 and 1820, that they
housed a substantial population, organised vast amounts of labour
for infrastructural development, and displayed extraordinary levels
of agricultural innovation and productivity. The Koni were part of
a trading system linked to the coast of Mozambique and the wider
world of Indian Ocean trade beyond. Forgotten World tells the story
of Bokoni through rigorous historical and archaeological research,
and lavishly illustrates it with stunning photographic images.
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